...faster and faster until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death...

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

HPR Shakedown

On Sunday I'll be taking the car to High Plains Raceway for a shakedown/test session. I hope the weather holds. Beyond making sure the thing works on the track, I'm focused on getting the alignment and overall balance sorted. The main tools will be my new (to me) Longacre tire temp gauge, stopwatch and driver feel.

Tire temperatures will be used to make sure the front and rear camber settings are optimized. Since I've been running Nitto NT-01 for almost a full season I have a handle on the optimum pressure, but I'll be open to making small changes. The primary tuning tool is the driver. I'm going to focus on setting up the car to be comfortable -- aiming for a little oversteer in entry and a little understeer on exit.

This is why double-adjustable shocks are so important, the ability to change how the car behaves before and after the apex. Triple and quad adjustable can also change the behavior at high and low speed both before and after the apex.